Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 554 ..

reduced at international law. There is no understanding of what it means in international law. There is no jurisprudence, there is no precedent and nobody knows what it means. You cannot stand up here now and tell me the limits of that right and whether or not any court around the world has deliberated on the meaning of that right or that principle.

Mr Stefaniak: You tell me the limits of any of the rights in here.

MR STANHOPE: There is a body of jurisprudence, of precedent of international law on all of those rights, Mr Stefaniak. This is the point: you are seeking here to introduce a notion that simply has not developed at international law to the point where it is safe for us to include it in the Human Rights Bill. It may be that it is a right that we could include at some stage. We have had a debate earlier tonight about the inclusion of economic, social and cultural rights. It may very well be that this is amongst a range of other rights that we might fruitfully debate in the future, but today I do not believe it is appropriate at all for us to include in the Human Rights Bill a principle enunciated in the Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power a principle that does not have treaty status and is not binding on any nation. It is not a binding document, it is not a treaty, it does not have that body of international law backing it and it should not be included at this stage in the Human Rights Bill of the ACT.

MS TUCKER (9.52): I also will not be supporting this amendment. As Mr Stanhope said, Mr Stefaniak is attempting to add a right to safety and security which he has drawn from the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power. Already in the bill there is a right to liberty and security of person, drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Safety may well be a useful addition but it does not seem to be part of any established international instruments on human rights and I do find it rather ironic that Mr Stefaniak, who has been so damning of this legislation because of what he perceives to be a lack of jurisprudence and of a guiding law to interpret it, is so prepared to just add his own concept of a right in the way that he is proposing with this amendment.

The proposal does not come from a declaration of rights but, as I said, the declaration of basic principles. The declaration is not written in terms of rights. There is no formulation of a right to safety and security in this document. It is a guideline for dealing with victims of all sorts of crimes and abuses of power. It is useful perhaps in considering legislation limiting support for victims of particular crimes. Indeed, it might have been useful during the last Assembly, Mr Stefaniak, when we were debating victims of crime.

However, even overlooking that point and overlooking the fact that this right is not expressed in those terms in the document, this is one aspect of a complete statement and that creates problems in balance. As Mr Stefaniak pointed out during the in principle debate, rights need to be balanced against each other. So to pick only one right out of a statement of principles on this particular topic is of concern. Why not draw from these principles a right to be free from abuse of power? This is quite a pressing dilemma for our society at the moment. In the pursuit of measures argued to enhance our society, abuses of power are arguably becoming more likely as the protections against are whittled away. Fear of terrorism is reducing everyone’s security and safety from abuse. Meanwhile, of course, our environmental security is being actively eroded without much effort to change the way we do things. I will not be supporting this amendment.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .